In a disappointing 2024 season, the Chicago Bears were held back not only by coaching malpractice but shaky quarterback plays and poor game management in crucial situations.

While those downfalls would lead to the firing of former head coach Matt Eberflus after a Thanksgiving loss to the Detroit Lions, the new coaching staff in place this year is taking a very serious approach to fixing game management issues on this roster.

Advertisement

New head coach Ben Johnson is putting together serious efforts to fix issues that hampered the team last season — and he’s paying attention to all details. When asked about how he will work on game management in his first season as an NFL head coach, Johnson is putting emphasis on watching tape with the team and figuring out issues during practice.

“It’s how you get good at anything,” Johnson said on Tuesday. “It’s repetition over and over and over again. You watch tape, you put yourself in that mindset. If I was here now in this situation, what would I do? That’s why the situations we practice over the course of camp are going to be huge for not only me, but for also the rest of the staff and the players to figure out how my mind works so that they can play off of that accordingly. “

Embracing the challenge that lies ahead to get acquainted as a team, Johnson believes they’re in a race against time until the start of the season.

“I just hope we can, in six weeks, get enough reps to feel good going into Week 1,” Johnson said. “That’s the challenge. This is a race now. Everything’s a race. We’ve got to get our fundamentals down; we’ve got to get our execution down. This is going to be a challenge, certainly for the first year with new systems on both sides of the ball. That’s the fun part of it too, though. That’s the challenge that we want and it’s going to be some hard work in that sense.”

Advertisement

There will be plenty of work to be done on both sides of the ball, but all things considered, Johnson and the coaching staff appear to be taking game management very seriously. That includes not only understanding game management, but also the important factors to get everyone on the same page and practicing the fundamentals until the system is not just in place but followed, as well.

This article originally appeared on Bears Wire: Bears HC Ben Johnson explains approach to good game management